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Summary
So many companies want to innovate in order to find new business models. But what happens when your company already has a business model? How do you disrupt your business model without destroying your business? Why would you even bother? Innovating inside an already successful company requires a new set of tools for overcoming internal resistance, not losing your current customer base, and knowing when to give up existing revenue streams. In this talk, Laura Klein, author of “Build Better Products” and “UX for Lean Startups” shares some tips for companies who want to find new business models before the old ones stop working.
Key Insights
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Large enterprises face unique innovation challenges because they must integrate new features without disrupting existing successful products.
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Resistance often comes from skilled employees protecting the current successful business model, not from a dislike of innovation per se.
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Startups inherently tolerate uncertainty and rapid, chaotic change; this model does not translate well to big companies with legal, HR, procurement, and marketing constraints.
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Early involvement of all stakeholders—including legal, HR, procurement, and marketing—reduces later resistance and bureaucratic delays.
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Securing dedicated innovation funding tied to reasonable learning goals, not traditional quarterly financial milestones, enables real experimentation.
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Strong executive sponsorship is critical to shielding innovation teams from organizational pushback and preserving resources.
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Incentive structures in large companies often reward risk aversion and predictability, which conflict with the exploratory nature of innovation.
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Big R research (exploratory, without fixed timelines) struggles for support in enterprises focused on development with predictable deliverables.
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Grassroots or bottom-up innovation efforts rarely succeed without high-level buy-in and political support within the enterprise.
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Innovation is a long, collaborative process that requires patience, diplomacy, well-managed change, and a focus on improving people’s jobs rather than replacing them.
Notable Quotes
"Successful products and organizations don’t just happen, they’re created by people who have a stake in the status quo."
"Why would a large company want something new that might not make money for a long time or ever, when they can just tweak something that works?"
"In startups, you’re jumping off a cliff and building the plane on the way down. In enterprises, you’re building a new engine inside a flying plane."
"You are not the first person to try something like this. Many have been through transformation hell before and aren’t looking forward to another."
"Legal, procurement, HR, and marketing exist to keep the company out of trouble and will resist risks, but can be allies if involved early."
"Big companies love certainty. Asking them for Gantt charts on innovation is like asking for a magic crystal ball."
"People don’t hate innovation. They like their jobs and feel threatened by changes that put their skills or status at risk."
"You need to make sure people understand you’re making their jobs better, not trying to replace them."
"Innovation in companies is not free money — it needs to come with reasonable goals focused on learning, not immediate profit."
"If you think you can do innovation at a company without the CEO’s buy-in, I would love to see that because I’ve never seen it work."
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